Is County negligent ?

[looney2n]

What is the name of your state? What is the name of your state?Minnesota
I am writing on behalf of my son. While he was incarcerated in our county jail, the correction officers failed to give him needed medication prescribed by his doctor. My son's Dr. put him on Effexor, but then decided to take him off of it. In order to do that, he needed to slowly ruduce the dosage. According to literature on this med, you are never to suddenly go off of it. He gave my son sample 1/2 doses that he was to start. The officers told my son that they needed to call his Dr. to confirm the meds. Over one month passed and my son had repeatedly told the officers that he was going to run out of the current meds. He finally filed a medical complaint at the jail. The officers ignored him and finally told him that they had lost/misplaced the meds. My son did run out and as a result, he went through intense withdrawel symtoms and had to be transported to the local emergency room. He even went into convulsions/siezure. Since then, he has been noted to have a high heart rate,approx. 130-140 bpm. He is 26 years old so his heart rate is almost double of what it should be for his age. He also is experiencing a nervous shakey feeling so we are assuming it is from the withdrawel of effexor. He is still incarcerated. He wonders if the officers violated his rights. He wants to know if he has the right to sue the county for negligence,pain and suffering or even if he would qualify as an vulnerable adult because he has to depend on the officers for his medical and general well being. Any advice you could offer would be greatly appreciated. Thank you,

 

[hmmbrdzz]

Sounds all too familiar. I used to work for a prison and came to know of many cases such as this where the inmate, through legal counsel provided him by the state's prison legal service, won their cases against the state -- especially regarding medication errors that caused injury.

This does not sound good for the county. From your story, it sounds like your son took the right steps to attempt to ensure his medication did not run out. He filed a report; the medications ran out; they should have been titrated down (not stopped suddenly), and possibly because of negligence on someone's part he had a medical crisis on account of it and suffered injury.

I'm not familiar with what -- if any legal counsel is provided for jail incarcerated individuals, but it would be worth your contacting the MN Attorney General's Office to report this incident and to find out what options you may have and what course you (or your son) should take with respect to legal representation.

I've provided you a web site for the DOC for MN. It may not help you any, but I think it might direct you to the AG's office on this link. You do need to pick up the phone and start finding out some info.

Good luck.

http://www.doc.state.mn.us/

hmmbrdzz

 

[looney2n]

Thanks hmmbrdzz-read on,...

Thank you so much for your opinion. It seems as though I am getting nowhere on this. But now its even gotten worse. My son is still experiencing a high heart rate (130-155 bpm), electric shock like sensations in his chest and head and tremors. He went to his Dr. and now the doctor thinks that he has something called 'disconnuation syndrome' from the whole withdrawel incident. This apparently means that he may have to suffer periods of the same symtoms or even worse for the rest of his life. The Dr. said that it is caused from stopping effexor suddenly instead of tapering off. I will definitely report this to the appropriate people and we will be looking for an attorney. But even if he wins a lawsuit, it won't make up for what he has to suffer through. I want so badly to warn not only people that are considering taking this drug, but other similar drugs. Again, thank you for responding. It gave me a little motivation to keep trying. Bless you, looney2n

 

[hmmbrdzz]

These newer antidepressants, as you now know (and may have known when your son was Rxed), can have some very harmful side effects and withdrawal complications and deserve close observation by the psychiatrist or doctor prescribing them. I'm an RN (23+ yrs), with a lot of psychiatric nursing experience. I think the newer antidepressants are just beginning to show us what they can do to someone other than treat their depression. The fact your son had no choice due to incarceration -- well, that just makes it even more worthy of your pursuit.

I wish you well, and I hope your son will be OK.

hmmbrdzz

 

[zappy]

OH GEE all the feel good Oprah Dr Phil , lets give this poor boy who is in jail a BIG HUG!


Geez....enough is enough let the boy suffer the rest of his life, he was stupid enough to get arrested while on medication....DUH!

How long does he have left on his sentence anyway? and what was he arrested for?

Maybe you can convice me to feel sorry for him.

 

[hmmbrdzz]

Oh come oh ahlee, mixim, helltaco, (let's see.... what other forum troll names are there? uhhhhh. It's no matter of feeling sorry for him. It's a matter of fact.

hmmbrdzz

 

[JMere2002]

This infuriates me on more than one level! Yes, looney2n, to feel that people should be warned about the potential hazards of certain medications is entirely justified. I think many people have the belief that if it is prescribed, it must be safe. TV ads that make prescriptions seem about as harmful as Tootsie Pops don't help. Even if your son were not incarcerated but instead prevented access to his medication for some other reason, he likely would have experienced the same symptoms.

But the fact that he was under the supervision and "care" of law enforcement adds insult to injury. It makes no difference what he did to get to prison. I did a simple Google search on effexor, and found many, many warnings against suddenly going off the med. There are other drugs with similar warnings. Don't they provide law enforcement with any training in how to deal with these matters?

looney2n, I hope you will continue to pursue this with all your might! Best of luck.
J